Was The Ohio Election Honest And Fair?

Submitted by Institute for Public Accuracy on 11/4/04 at 10:25 AM. ( www.accuracy.org ) 69.171.249.149

For all of you Taxidermist that are always shooting your mouth off. Read up and see some truth!

Interviews and Background

TERESA FEDOR (via Greg Lestini glestini@maild.sen.state.oh.us)

Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: "There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It's been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that's why I called for [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell's resignation more than a month ago. Blackwell, while claiming to run an unbiased elections process, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. Additionally, he was the spokesperson for the anti-business, anti-family constitutional amendment 'Issue 1,' and a failed initiative to repeal a crucial sales-tax revenue source for the state. Blackwell learned his moves from the Katherine Harris playbook of Florida 2000, and we won't stand for it."

BILL MOSS bmoss@hbcuconnect.com

Executive vice president of HBCU Connect, which works to connect historically black colleges and universities, Moss said today: "I stayed in line two and a half hours. I've never seen anything like this in my life. There were fewer voting machines in the highly concentrated black areas, creating the long lines so as to frustrate the voters. But we knew the Republicans -- many of whom became Republicans because they opposed equal rights for blacks -- would try to drive down black turnout. ... [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell was confusing things by raising issues like the paper weight of cards."

SUSAN TRUITT susan.truitt@lexisnexis.com http://www.caseohio.org

Co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, Truitt said today: "Seven counties in Ohio have electronic voting machines and none of them have paper trails. That alone raises issues of accuracy and integrity as to how we can verify the count. A recount without a paper trail is meaningless; you just get a regurgitation of the data. Last year, Blackwell tried to get the entire state to buy new machines without a paper trail. The exit polls, virtually the only check we have against tampering with a vote without a paper trail, had shown Kerry with a lead. ... A poll worker told me this morning that there were no tapes of the results posted on some machines; on other machines the posted count was zero, which obviously shouldn't be the case."

Wallach is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston specializing in building secure and robust software systems for the Internet. Along with colleagues at Johns Hopkins, Wallach co-authored a groundbreaking study that revealed significant flaws in electronic voting systems. He appeared on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release in June entitled "Electronic Voting -- Danger for Democracy."

BOB FITRAKIS rfitrakis@cscc.edu

An attorney who monitored the election with the Election Protection Coalition, Fitrakis said today: "There were far fewer machines in the inner-city districts than in the suburbs. I documented at least a dozen people leaving because the lines were so long in African-American areas. Blackwell did a great deal of suppressing before the election -- like attempting to refuse to process voter registration forms. The absentee ballots were misleading in Franklin County. Kerry was the third line down, but you had to punch number four to vote for him. Bush was getting both his votes as well as Kerry's."

Senior editor of FreePress.org, an Ohio-based web site, and co-author with Fitrakis of the recent article "Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote," Wasserman said today: "There was a huge fight around ensuring that the electronic voting machines had paper trails and there was resistance by the secretary of state, so there is no paper trail. There were some victories to ensure a paper trial -- by 2006. There were limited numbers of voting machines in African-American districts. Some people had to wait up to eight hours, far more than in predominantly white areas."

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

On November 9, 2003, the New York Times reported: "In mid-August, Walden W. O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc., sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. 'I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,' wrote Mr. O'Dell, whose company is based in Canton, Ohio. That is hardly unusual for Mr. O'Dell. A longtime Republican, he is a member of President Bush's 'Rangers and Pioneers,' an elite group of loyalists who have raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race. But it is not the only way that Mr. O'Dell is involved in the election process. Through Diebold Election Systems, a subsidiary in McKinney, Tex., his company is among the country's biggest suppliers of paperless, touch-screen voting machines. Judging from Federal Election Commission data, at least 8 million people will cast their ballots using Diebold machines next November. ... Some people find Mr. O'Dell's pairing of interests -- as voting-machine magnate and devoted Republican fund-raiser -- troubling." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/ business/yourmoney/09vote.html

On November 3, 2004, Reuters reported: "Voters across the United States reported problems with electronic touch-screen systems on Tuesday in what critics said could be a sign that the machines used by one-third of the population were prone to error.... " http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1103-03.htm &nb sp; On October 24, 2004, the Palm Beach Post reported: "A federal judge on Monday rejected U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's claim that paperless electronic voting violates the constitutional rights of Floridians...." http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content /news/epaper/2004/10/26/c1a_wexler_1026.html

On November 3, 2004, Thomas Crampton wrote in the International Herald Tribune: "The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices...." http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/02/news/observe.html

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy Sam Husseini (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858 or David Zupan (541) 484-9167

That is the FUNNIEST article I have ever seen.

I live in Ohio. First of all 90% of Ohio voted with PUNCH CARDS....the HATED punch cards. The electronic voting was promoted BYT DEMOCRATS! Now they are bitching because there's no "paper trail". NO DUH! If the Republicans were REALLY trying to change something we would have stopped the punch cards.

Of course there were less voting machines in "black" neighborhoods. We were trying to keep them down. LOL! Hmmm, people had to wait for hours here in my small town of 2000 people. I think they were trying keep the small town vote down as well.

BUSH didn't lose by 20 votes. Quit crying.

Look LOSER, Get over it

This response submitted by George on 11/4/04 at 10:36 AM. ( georoof@aol.com ) 64.12.116.198

I don't know what it's going to take to make you socialists understand. The mainstream media fills your empty skulls with so much propogand that you absorb, hook, line and sinker that you're incapable of intelligent thought. Over HALF of the U.S. electorate has spoken loud and clear. WE KNOW YOUR LIES. WE UNDERSTAND YOUR STRATEGY. All the michael moores and george soro's in the world are not going to influence the truth. This sick little cut and paste exposes it even more. That ditz who started the story laments that she "can't get voters registered". EXCUSE ME? Why would she HAVE to get voters registered unless she was trying to skew the results. Voters who WANT TO VOTE, register themselves. Picking up 100 illegal aliens in a bus and taking them to the voter registration ain't cutting it. They will be found out and their votes negated anyway. What part of LOSER aren't you capable of understanding. Do I need to use Ebonics to get the point across. Obviously English is not your native tongue, but maybe we can work on making it the AMERICAN official language next.

Get over it Cecil you lost

This response submitted by Ed on 11/4/04 at 11:09 AM. ( ) 216.51.174.213

and the better man won

It wasn't me Ed

This response submitted by Cecil on 11/4/04 at 11:14 AM. ( ) 63.115.128.244

And frankly I agree this is water under the bridge. We need to move on. Once the loser concedes it's a mute point.

hey genius

Cecil, again, you amaze us all. How a self proclaimed near genius can use "mute" for the obvious word "moot" is beyond me. Hahaha!

As for the original post, Id be embarrassed to be a black person. Some people sure wanna play that race card all the time, dont they? Funny how it only works one sided though. I cant acknowledge that someone IS black, thats being racist, but every single excuse on the other side is BECAUSE theyre black. Reverse racism.

I prefer "mute" Bill!

This response submitted by Cecil on 11/4/04 at 11:58 AM. ( ) 63.115.128.244

Doesn't it make more sense to use that spelling? That's what we say here in Indiana anyway. LOL

Popular vote

This response submitted by oldshaver on 11/4/04 at 6:19 PM. ( ) 207.69.0.20

All I have heard for the last 4 years from dems, was that Bush stole the 2000 election, and that Gore won the popular vote. This time Bush won both! He won the popular vote by more than 2.5million! Doesnt that tell you anything? Morality WON! GET THE HELL OVER IT!

Sorry Cecil

This response submitted by Ed on 11/4/04 at 7:55 PM. ( ) 216.51.174.213